When instructors upload course content to Udemy, they give Udemy a permanent, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, modify, and sublicense that content to third parties indefinitely.
This analysis describes what Udemy's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision establishes Udemy's operational authority to repurpose, redistribute, and commercialize instructor-submitted content across its network and to external distribution partners. The sublicensing right permits Udemy to extend these permissions to third-party entities without requiring additional instructor consent.
For instructors, this means Udemy can license their course videos and materials to enterprise clients and other third parties indefinitely and royalty-free, significantly limiting instructors' control over their own intellectual property after uploading.
How other platforms handle this
By submitting content to Walmart, you grant Walmart and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in ...
By making available any User Content through the Service, you hereby grant to Duolingo a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, ...
By submitting or posting content on or through the Service, you grant Starbucks a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such content in any and all media or distribution...
Monitoring
Udemy has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 25 platforms.
"By submitting or posting content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, and distribute your content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). You agree that this license includes the right for Udemy to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations, or individuals for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, repost, promotion, or publication of such content on other media and services.— Excerpt from Udemy's Udemy Terms of Use
(1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: This provision implicates copyright law under 17 U.S.C. §101 et seq. (U.S. Copyright Act) and equivalent laws in EU member states under Directive 2001/29/EC (InfoSoc Directive) and the EU Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790. The license grant must be assessed for compliance with moral rights protections under French droit moral and similar protections in EU jurisdictions where such rights are inalienable. The FTC Act Section 5 may apply if the scope of the license is not adequately disclosed to instructors at the point of upload. (2)
Full compliance analysis
Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
Free: track 1 platform + weekly digest. Monitor: 25 platforms + same-day alerts. No credit card required.
Compliance Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Compliance includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
This provision establishes Udemy's operational authority to repurpose, redistribute, and commercialize instructor-submitted content across its network and to external distribution partners. The sublicensing right permits Udemy to extend these permissions to third-party entities without requiring additional instructor consent.
For instructors, this means Udemy can license their course videos and materials to enterprise clients and other third parties indefinitely and royalty-free, significantly limiting instructors' control over their own intellectual property after uploading.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Udemy.